


enough to feed the birds

by dejame



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Weird Plot Shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-04-08 04:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19099423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dejame/pseuds/dejame
Summary: never before david and matteo has a person met their soulmate and found they had no soul.or: soulmate au but w/ soulless!matteo





	1. one am

**Author's Note:**

> i'm writing this on my phone so i can't tag anything, but i need you to know this story will make no (and i cannot stress this enough) sense.

"Go to God," Mr. Florenzi says. "And pray for your mother, dear." Matteo exits the passenger door and watches his father pull away from the churchyard. He steps into the street and is immediately hit by a car.

"Jesus, fuck," someone says.

"What the _fuck_ , Laura?"

"Fuck, man, I am so sorry. Fuck."

"Are you okay? Hey, are you okay?"

"Fuck, I hit a choir boy. I killed a choir boy."

Matteo blinks. He says, "I'm not dead." And then, " _Ow._ " The girl—Laura, apparently—drops to her knees and leans over him. Her wavy dark hair makes a curtain around them, and Matteo thinks for a moment that she's protecting him from the sun.

She says, "Man, I am so damn sorry, man. Fuck."

The second voice: "Laura, get off him."

"Are you okay?" Her voice wavers. Her chin wobbles. Her eyes water. Matteo nods. "Are you sure? We'll take you to the hospital. You look pretty bad."

Matteo says, "I think it's just because I'm still on the ground."

"Oh, fuck, you're right. Sorry." She helps him to his feet, and he sways a bit. "OK, um, insurance. I need my insurance card."

"No, it's fine. I'm fine."

And the second voice says, "You might want to see a doctor just in case, right?"

Matteo turns and sees Him. Something in his throat catches. He thinks,  _Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of hosts. Heaven and Earth are full of thy glory. Glory be to you, most high._ The boy says, "You don't look too good." And Matteo passes out.

* * *

The story of David and Matteo will soon be detailed in textbooks and taught in lecture halls. It will thread into throw pillows and be stretched into lullabies, for it is so singular that there is no other choice.

* * *

It is only a concussion. The car was slow, but Matteo's never learned how to break a fall, so his brain rattled against his skull and now he must avoid avid socializing, video games, TV, and ping-pong.

His father picks him up from the hospital. Laura and the boy are still there. As Mr. Florenzi guides his son to the car, Laura makes more apologies and David hides in his hoodie. Still, Mr. Florenzi asks, "Do I know you, son?"

Laura steps in front of him. She says, "I can pay for the ambulance." Matteo mumbles something as he slides into the backseat. "What?" she asks him.

"We don't need your money," Mr. Florenzi says, and he slams the door closed.

"At least let me make it up to him somehow," Laura urges. She follows Mr. Florenzi to the driver's door. "Can I send flowers? Chocolates? Please?" Mr. Florenzi closes the door in her face and starts the ignition. Laura taps repeatedly on the glass. "I just feel awful about this, sir." He sighs, rolls the window down an inch, and sticks out a business card. She accepts it. "Thank you so much, sir."

Mr. Florenzi says, "Watch where you're going next time."

* * *

The scientists discovered soulmates by chance, and it unlocked the largest door to the grandest house anyone had ever seen. A million marriages ended and began in months. Hearts were broken and repaired and made valid. Governments unmade war, for it and love were no longer fair.

It didn't make sense, really. No one could believe they had once been so angry and hurt and unwhole. There were many times where many lovers would turn to each other and reminisce.

"Can you believe anger?" one would ask.

And another would say, "Can you remember what anything other than this feels like?"

* * *

The first thing David says to him when he enters his room is, "Your dad has an assistant." Matteo freezes in his bed at this stranger in his space. David says, "I'm David." And when Matteo still seems confused, he says, "My sister hit you with her car."

"Oh, right." David sets down a vase of flowers and sits on the floor. Matteo goes, "We own chairs."

"You own many things." David nods. His eyes roam the high ceiling and grand windows. "Nice things."

"Thanks."

 _This is taking too long,_  David thinks.

"You're my soulmate," David says. "I found you a while ago and I messed up a bunch of times. Because I kept trying to fix you, but that's wrong. I know that now and I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry?" Matteo says.

David says, "No, _I'm_ sorry."

"No, I mean, like." He squeezes his eyes shut. "I just don't know what you're talking about."

"My soulmate connection, it's time-lapsing."

Matteo nods. "That's the one where you can see me before we meet, right?"

"Right," David says. "Only it kept glitching because—"

"I don't have a soulmate," Matteo says, and he checks his arm just to make sure. "I haven't for years. And when I did, it wasn't 'David,' it was—"

"Don't say it."

Matteo doesn't say it.

Matteo does say, "So we've met before."

And David says, "Yes."

And Matteo says, "And I don't remember because you're...glitching?"

"Right."

"And we broke up?"

"I ruined it," David says. "I always ruin it. I hide and I lie or I take too long or I go too fast."

Matteo asks, "Does this mean your sister hit me with her car on purpose?"

"No, that really was an accident; you came out of nowhere."

"Oh," Matteo says.

"You can't just walk into the street like that."

"Right."

"You didn't even look both ways." They're smiling at one another. David tilts his head to the side and says, "I missed you. So much."

Matteo says, "I have no idea who you are."

"Would you like to?"

"I think so."

"I can tell you how we met. I can tell you all the times we met." Matteo nestles into his pillows.

"Not like I have anything better to do," he says. David snorts. "What?"

"Nothing," he says, and then he thinks better of it. "That used to annoy me. When you'd just shut down or something."

"I don't shut down," Matteo says. "I don't annoy you anymore?" _Yes,_ David thinks. But that's not entirely true.

He says, "No, not really. You can't. You can't. I just...I love you. I love—" And he realizes there's no other way of saying it. So, again: "I love you."

Matteo says, "I don't." He only feels bad about it when David jerks back like he's been slapped, like it stings. He says, "Sorry."

"You're forgiven," David goes. "Do you want me to leave?"

"No, tell your stories. I love the Book of David."

"You're religious now?" David asks.

Rather than answer, Matteo asks, "I wasn't before?" David blushes. He is so ashamed that he doesn't know. He's so ashamed he's never asked. But he will now. He always will now.

* * *

Love is fact. Love is easy. Love is patient. Love is kind.

And that is why the world stops for two boys in Berlin following the day Matteo Florenzi is told the Book of David.

Never in new history had anyone seen such a fight for something so fleeting. Never had they seen any fight at all, really, as there was no need for hate when love was abundant and everywhere. Never before David and Matteo had a person met their soulmate and found they had no soul.

 


	2. two pm

David sees his soulmate for the first time when he is thirteen. He's playing hide and seek, waiting in a dark closet that feels like heat and lint. When the door yanks open, he is in a new hallway in a new house in a new city.

A boy stares back at him, then shoves his hand right through the center of David's chest to grab a coat. He yells, "Wait for me!" to someone further down the hall and then he slams the door closed.

David tries to go after him, but the door is his door, and the hallway is his hallway. He stands still and confused and obvious. Laura rushes to him and pinches his left shoulder.

"You're it," she says.

* * *

David tries over and over again. The closet door opens and closes and opens again to the same dark, dank nothing. Nothing changes. Laura observes him from her seat on the floor.

"That's not how it works," she goes. "It's not controllable. I mean, I can't just wipe off my tattoo with soapy water or get it removed." She holds up her arm to showcase the _Ella_ in brilliant font.

David says, "Yeah, but this isn't a tattoo. I _saw_ him."

"Maybe you imagined it," Laura says. And then, "Is that Dad's shirt?" David tugs on the fringes of his clothes. He shrugs. Laura shakes her head. "No, no. No Dad clothes. Are you kidding me? Jesus."

* * *

Laura has cool loser friends who work at cool loser shops at the mall downtown. They let the Schribner siblings stay after hours while locking up. Laura swipes through the clothing racks and David says, "We can't afford this."

She laughs. "You think we're paying?" She holds up two pairs of jeans. "Do you know what size you are?" David looks at her like, _How the hell would I know that?_ She sighs. "Just try a bunch of these on, then."

He sees him again in the darkened dressing rooms. He opens the door to a bedroom. An abandoned video game toggles through character selections on the TV. Two boys awkwardly fall into bed.

One says, "This isn't weird. Right?"

And David's boy says, "No. Right. Not weird."

David closes the door.

* * *

And again when we wakes up in the middle of the night to pee. Instead of the bathroom, he gets another bedroom. A red-headed girl cries on his shoulder and he runs his fingers up and down her arm. They lie in bed so comfortable and easy with one another. Something in David's stomach roars.

"I just don't know what to do," the girl is saying. "Every time we get closer, something happens and it feels like it's all in my head."

He says only, "Sorry." The pretty girl laughs.

Says, "Why can't _you_ like me, Matteo?" And from his reaction alone, it's obvious. David's boy, Matteo, is in love. He can see it in his gorgeous eyes and smile and cheeks. _Stop that,_ David thinks. _Wait for me._

He wants to stay longer and to hear them whisper more, but he really has to take a piss. He closes the door.

* * *

It continues this way for days and weeks and months and one whole year. "I don't see what the point of this is," David says. "Seeing him before he can see me—that's, like, torture."

"But you know what he looks like." Laura lies on the floor next to him and they stare at the ceiling. "What if Ella's a total hag? Or a bitch?" At that, her eyes widen. "Oh, my God. She could be a total bitch. You're so lucky. You can see his personality and how he treats people, and I could be stuck with an asshole."

David smiles. "I'm sure you'll love her anyways."

Laura huffs. "I don't wanna love her anyways."

He says, "I mean, you'll love them despite their flaws. Like everyone else."

But Laura just keeps murmuring: "I don't wanna love someone anyways. I don't want to love anything anyways."

* * *

Matteo gets a tattoo the day after David turns 15. It's quite underwhelming, considering David can seemingly teleport. Matteo's sleeping. It's breathtaking. How he sighs and turns and tugs his pillow close to his chest.

David reaches out to touch him. He wants to feel his hair or his cotton shirt or the acne bump under his eye. Everything about Matteo is romantic. He feels bigger than life.

Matteo twists in his sleep again and David gets a full look at the tattoo on his arm, at the name that is not his name. David yanks his hand back as if he's gotten too close to the coils of a hot stove. He goes to the bedroom door and walks into his kitchen pantry.

* * *

"I want to change my name," David says. His family blinks at him. Steam rolls off his plate and into his eyes. He blinks back.

His father asks, "Again?"

David shakes his head. "Sorry. I meant legally. Officially." His family is silent. David looks to Laura for help.

She clears her throat and says, "I can help pay for the, you know, papers."

"Well, we can afford it." And then their mother turns to their father, unsure. "We can afford it, right?" Mr. Schribner shrugs. Mrs. Schribner nods. "Yeah, we can probably swing that."

"But, you know, officially," Mr. Schribner says, and then stops. "That just. Well, that makes it  _real._ " And then, quick, "Not that it isn't real now of course."

"It'll just put a target on your head, sweetie," Mrs. Schribner concludes. She takes a bite of her dinner and her teeth clang on the fork with finality.

 David says, "But—"

"David," she says, and her eyes are as sharp as shark's teeth. "You're David. I know you're David. You know you're David." She says, "Not everyone needs to know you're David."

* * *

Laura sneaks into his room that night. She wipes his tears with the sleeves of her pajamas. She says, "We'll just have to do it ourselves."

* * *

David stops opening doors in the dark. He doesn't want to see Matteo with the wrong name and the wrong expectations. He doesn't want to associate any wrongness with his soulmate. He wants Matteo to feel like release. He wants a love like everyone else's. He wants Matteo to know he is David.

* * *

David gets a cool loser job at a cool loser store downtown. David gets a nose piercing and a better binder and small crush on the girl who works morning shifts.

She watches him fold clothes and laughs at his bad jokes and finds stupid excuses to touch his arm and his hair and his hand. She asks, "Are you doing anything this weekend?" every Friday.

Finally, David says, "Sorry. I'm already..."

"Oh, sorry," she blushes. And she clocks out with a quickness. "Sorry."

* * *

Morning Shift Girl stops looking at him. She clocks out and smiles politely and leaves with a nod.

* * *

On the day he sees Matteo—like, the day he  _sees_ Matteo, real and in person and corpereal—he is wearing his work uniform with a name tag that says DAVID in big block letters and he gets so nervous his legs start shaking.

Matteo is with a pretty girl. He holds her hand like Laura holds the dead fish their father shoves toward her before he starts up the grill. His eyes wander up and down David and his tongue sneaks out to swipe across his bottom lip.

He says, "Leonie, are you ready?"

Morning Shift Girl smiles. She goes, "Of course."

David whispers, "Matteo." No one hears him. He clears his throat and balls his hands into fists and, still, his voice wavers. "Matteo?"

Matteo meets his eyes. David's legs and knees and toes tingle. He says, "Yeah?"

David says, "I'm—" He sees Matteo's hand, still sandwiched with the girl's.

Leonie asks, "You guys know each other?"

David goes, "It's me." Matteo doesn't get it. His eyebrows cinch in confusion. David says, again, "It's me."

Matteo shakes his head. "Sorry?" And David looks down at the held hands again and notices the large expanse of pale skin and small moles and splattered freckles. Matteo's tattoo is gone.

The pretty girl checks her phone. Says, "The movie starts in, like, 10 minutes."

Matteo goes, "Sorry, I don't remember you're name." Because he thinks they've met before. Because he thinks he's forgotten David's voice and face.

David says, "I'm going on break." Leonie yells at him as he runs to the back. And because he knows she'll follow him, he hides himself with the vaccums and carpet shampoo. He hears her footsteps retreat and he attempts to gather his thoughts, but he cannot think anything other than  _I need Laura._

When he finally steps out, the door is his door and the closet is his closet and the back of the store is his hallway. He freezes. He blinks. Thinks,  _Holy fucking shit._

Laura pinches his left shoulder.

"You're it."

 


	3. three am

"So, essentially, you're a time traveler," Matteo surmises, and David stalls his story. He looks up and Matteo looks down right back at him. "And you've just been dating me over and over again." He doesn't intend for it to come out as an accusation, but the bite in his voice has a mind of it's own.

"In a word, yes."

"And we broke up."

"Mm-hm."

"And to win me back, your sister ran me over with her car." David groans and Matteo feels sweat begin to pool in the dips between his fingers. He's still caught up on the car accident thing, and reasonably so, but he does not want to annoy David into packing up and leaving without finishing. He says, honestly, "I'm just trying to figure out why you want me." He pushes himself up and out of his mess of pillows to sit against his headboard. A thought occurs to him and Matteo narrows his eyes. "And how old are you?"

"We're the same age."

"Not if you've relived a bunch of years. That's cheating."

David huffs. "I thought you wanted to hear what I had to say. Your book of David."

"Don't say it like that."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Frivolously. Book of David sounds important." He goes, "And I do want to hear what you have to say. I like your voice." David nestles his cheek into the shoulder of his sweater to hide the blush.

Matteo continues, "But if we just keep meeting and things keep going wrong, then maybe we shouldn't be together." David stands from his seat on the floor. "WAIT." David freezes. "Where are you going?"

"Sorry." David forces his feet to still beneath him. "I leave a lot. It's kind of my thing."

"You don't have to leave," he says, and David knows what he really means is _You don't have to love me._ He's being let down easy. Matteo wants to be friends.

David inhales. "I know you don't know how it feels," he says. Matteo's brow furrows in confusion."But I can't be friends with you. I can't be half in, half out."

"Why would being my friend mean being half-in half-out?"

"Because it's not the same."

"But why not?" Matteo glares. "I don't consider any of my friends half, and I don't need some tattoo on my arm to tell me who to love."

David says, "I don't want to fight."

"We aren't fighting." He reconsiders. "Are we fighting?"

"It's the one thing we never agree on: how to navigate you being my soulmate and me not being yours. It's why we broke up with each other." David shakes his head. "Or, really, it's why you broke up with me."

" _I_ dumped _you_?" Matteo's eyes bulge out of his head. "But you're…" _Hot_ , he thinks. He thinks David is hot.

"What am I?" David asks him, and Matteo blushes this time. He rolls his eyes as an excuse to look away. "I can leave if you want."

"Stop trying to leave."

"Sorry."

"You haven't even finished your story."

"Well," David says. "You interrupted me."

"Well," Matteo says. "You travelled back in time."

"Yeah, that's what Laura thinks, too."

Matteo smiles. Asks, "What do you think happened?"

David goes, "I think I just spent a really long time in that closet."

And Matteo goes, without thinking, "Ditto."

And then they're laughing so hard their stomachs hurt, laughing so hard their eyes water, laughing and laughing. When David sits down again to continue the Book of David, he sits on Matteo's bed, not Matteo's floor. And when he speaks, Matteo does not bury himself in his pillows. He sits up, attentive and hanging on to every word.

* * *

David is not proud of his second attempt in pursuing Matteo Florenzi.

* * *

David sees his soulmate for the first time when he is thirteen. Laura tags him in the hallway of his home and he immediately drags her into the closet with him. He opens and closes the door several times.

"What are you doing?" his sister asks. And also: "Is that Dad's shirt?" And David sees it all again: Laura's loser friends with their loser jobs, David's own loser job with Leonie, Leonie knowing Matteo, Leonie going to school with Matteo.

"I saw my soulmate," David says.

"Holy shit, really?" Laura turns on the closet light. "Boy or girl? Are they nice? What are they like?"

"I saw him but—"

"But what?"

David says, "I think I have to find him."

Laura blinks. "Well, how the hell are you supposed to do that?"

"I don't really know," David says. "But I know where to look."

* * *

In the future—the actual one, not the one David sees and plans and messes up—David realizes that this was stalking. It is not normal behavior to go to a (future) coworker's high school, volley through the list of primary educators that send students there, and search for a soulmate. It is not normal behavior to force your sister to take you to the libraries of these schools so that you both may find a yearbook that contains the name and picture of a "Matteo Florenzi."

He knows that now. He did not know that at thirteen. It is one of the many things he must apologize for when he is eighteen. He knows this, too.

* * *

Thirteen-year-old Matteo does not know much about which of his behaviors are normal or abnormal. He doesn't know why Sara is starting to look at him more, nor why he's starting to look at Jonas the same way. He does not know what exactly about Leonie pisses him off. He just knows that she does. He just knows that when she holds Jonas' hand or rolls her eyes when Jonas makes jokes, it makes him madder.

The only thing thirteen-year-old Matteo knows for sure during Attempt Number Two is that his teacher is a bit over-enthusiastic when she announces that "there will be two new students joining us."

She pushes the kids to the front of the class room. "Everyone meet Hanna Jung and—"

"David!" he says, almost to Matteo directly. "I'm David Schribner."


	4. four pm

It does not occur to David until a week into knowing Matteo and this new school and this fake life that Matteo may not even be out yet.

“He may not even know he likes boys,” Laura suggests.

“Do you think you’re helping right now?” David quips back. She drags him around the jungle gym until they’re facing the river. The sight of the water, so blue and peaceful, will calm her brother down. She’s sure of it.

David looks at the water and Laura looks at her arm.

“Do you think Ella’s gonna be this much trouble?” she asks and David tilts his head to the side in thought.

“Maybe she’s got this time thing too, and she’s watching us right now,” he says, and Laura snorts.

“Is that how it works, then? You just teleport wherever they are?”

“I’m not sure how any of this works. I’m not even sure I want to. It’s kind of fucked up.”

“How?”

“Because I know and he doesn’t.”

“Well, that’s how most relationships work, isn’t it?” she asks. David shakes his head. “One always knows more than the other one. Just like how one always loves the other more than the other one.”

“That’s not true.”

“It so is.”

“Is it?” David goes, “Name one example.”

“Mom and Dad,” Laura goes. David smiles.

“Yeah. Dad’s a dork.”

* * *

David thinks of it like this: he’s carrying the burden of knowledge. He knows Matteo is right for him and he is right for Matteo. He knows one day they’ll get married and have a kid and move to France for the summers so he can film his pretentious indie movies and Matteo can do whatever it is Matteo does.

He knows Matteo will smile when they’re together and hurt when they’re apart and he doesn’t know the superficial things (his middle name, his favorite colors, if he cares about wearing matching socks) but he knows something instinctual and primal and real. He knows one day, hopefully someday soon, Matteo will look at him and blink his eyes and show his teeth and realize who he is. He’ll say, _It’s you._ And David will confirm, _It’s me._

* * *

He sits with Matteo at lunch. Jonas is there, too, and Abdi. Leonie and Sara abandon them for the new girl, tugging at her red hair and baggy clothes. Jonas says, “They treat her like she’s a doll.”

Abdi says, “She is.” And Jonas glares at him. “That’s a compliment.”

“I’m not sure it is.” And Jonas shakes his head.

Matteo asks, “Why do you care so much about Hanna?” Jonas quickly and defensively declares he does not. “You do, though. You stare at her all the time and you talk about her after school.” Jonas glares at him.

Abdi laughs, “Don’t tell Leonie, huh?”

“I do not,” Jonas protests.

“You do,” Matteo says. “It’s annoying. Right?” He directs this last part at David, who is focusing too intently on the dark rings on the perimeter of Matteo’s irises to hear the context. But agreeing with Matteo is probably his best bet, so he goes,

“Right.”

Jonas shakes his head. Matteo gives David a thankful nod.

* * *

It is amazing how quickly it all happens after this first nod and smile and stare. It is confounding and confusing and a bit ethereal—to Matteo, that is. David knows better.

* * *

One should not give Matteo more credit than he deserves. He’s young and impressionable and in love, maybe. When he says “okay” it is usually out of habit or from ignorance. Wash the dishes? “Okay.” You’re so impassive! “Okay.” You need a tutor for Biology. “Okay.” You must call David ‘he’ regardless of what anyone else tells you. “Okay.”

“And David,” he adds. “Sometimes people use the wrong name, but it’s wrong. It’s just David.”

“Okay.”

“And I can’t change it legally right now. So. You know, my soulmate—WHOEVER IT MAY BE—will probably have the wrong name on their arm when the time comes.” Across the room, David catches Laura roll her eyes while doing her homework at the kitchen table. He sticks his tongue out at her.

“Okay.”

“I just wanted to make sure you knew all of that before meeting my parents. They’re kind of...they’re trying.”

And Matteo says, “Okay.” And Matteo says this mostly because he is afraid he will say the wrong thing and ruin everything. He will Google this when he gets home. He will be okay until then. David’s eyes glance up at him through his long, black lashes and his heart speeds up.

“This is cool?” he asks. Matteo nods. “Cool.”

* * *

The best part of finding your soulmate early is getting to grow up with him. Matteo has met David’s parents. David has heard Matteo’s parents argue. These are intimate things. David watches Matteo change right in front of his eyes, and he realizes he’s already seen this. He’s seen Matteo taller and cleaner and older. Matteo has not seen David be any more than he is now.

To even the score:

“We’re doing this to establish our teenage rebellion,” David says. Matteo shuffles on his feet. Laura rolls her eyes. She does that a lot now, he notices. The summer sun bounces off the sidewalk in waves and warms them each from top to bottom and to top again. It is too hot to argue, so David just states, “I’m serious.”

Laura goes, “Okay, but _we’re_ not doing anything. You are.”

“You always said you wanted your ears pierced.”

“I say a lot of things,” she quips back.

David turns to Matteo and asks, “Well, what do you think?”

Matteo goes, “Oka—”

“No, Matteo!” Laura steps in between them. She glares down at her brother and it is suddenly easy to remember that she is sixteen and drinks beer, which only adults do, as beer is awful. “You know he’ll go along with whatever you say.”

“No, he won’t. Right, Matteo?”

Matteo nods. Says, “Right.” Laura raises an eyebrow.

David groans. Says, “Fine.”

* * *

“You don’t just...do things because I ask you to, right?”

“Of course not. I have a brain.” _It just turns to mush whenever you look at me,_ Matteo thinks. Today might be the day he does it. He is fourteen. He is braver than he’s ever been. He is in love,  he thinks. No, he’s sure of it.

“So when we were at the piercing shop, you wanted to go in and do it?” David sits on his bed and Matteo forgets the question because David is _sitting_ on his _bed_. Matteo rests in that bed. He drools in that bed. He dreams in that bed, sometimes about David. He dreams about David being in that bed in that bed.

David is looking at him like he's expecting an answer.

Matteo says, “Okay.”

David’s like, “What?”

“What?” Matteo asks, “Is that bad?”

“Do you want a piercing?” he asks. “Yes or no?”

Matteo shrugs. “I mean, you want one.”

“So?”

“I'd get one with you.”

“That's not what I asked.”

“Are you mad at me?” Matteo tugs at the sleeves of his sweater. David’s eyes lose a bit of their brilliance.

“No,” he says, and Matteo can tell he's lying. “I'm not mad.”

* * *

 

 **David💕:** whenever i came out to you and you just said okay

 **David💕:** what did you mean by that exactly

 

_I meant okay._

 

Matteo bites his lip.

 

 **David💕** : but like….

 **David💕:** like you just say okay to everything so

 **David💕:** and this was kinda more serious

 

Matteo types _okay_ and then erases it.

 

_I didn’t know what else to say._

 

David’s typing bubble appears, disappears, and appears again. Finally:

 

 **David💕:** well why didn't you just say that?

 

_I don't know._

 

And then:

 

_I didn't think I needed to know._

_I just thought it was okay._

 

David doesn't respond.

* * *

It is now David realizes that maybe he’s in the wrong, that knowing more is not necessarily romantic. Knowing more is only a burden. And it’s a bit unfair of him to know what he knows and to leave Matteo there floundering with nothing more to do than agree.

“I think I messed up,” David says. Laura rolls her eyes. “What?”

“You’re just freaking out over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. I think I messed up. With Matteo.”

“Please,” she scoffs. “He’s obsessed with you.”

“No, yeah, I know.” David frowns. “Why aren’t I obsessed with him?” Laura laughs. David bites back. “What?”

“You aren’t obsessed with him?” she asks. “It’s all about Matteo every second of every hour of every day. I can’t take it anymore.” She says, “Your boyfriend loves you. That is not a problem.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” David says.

“Your soulmate. Even better. He loves you. You love him. I don’t understand how you can make a problem out of this, too.” David rears back, shocked.

“Are you mad at me?”

Laura’s eyes explode. She asks, “What gave it away?” And she slams her door in his face.

* * *

There is no remedy. Matteo is in love with David who is in love with Matteo and who knows something isn’t right. He can feel it. They aren’t right.

Matteo texts him the night before grade ten begins to ask if David is okay. David doesn’t answer. David shaves the sides of his head. David wears his loser mall clothes. David gets the piercing and he twists it even though he shouldn’t. David corrects people who don’t call him David because he should.

Classes start and bells ring and David doesn’t look Matteo in the eye, not once. He can’t.

* * *

David asks his sister what he’s done wrong. She scoffs. She shakes her head. She rolls her eyes.

* * *

There is something David forgot about. The day he turns fifteen is quiet dinner and his parents pinching his cheeks. It is Laura, who has not spoken to him in weeks, kissing his forehead and gifting him with money and a card. It is horrible.

The day after is worse. It is school and boring and fatigue. It is Matteo cornering him in the bathroom just as the bell rings and the stalls empty. Matteo raises his arm. “It’s you,” he says. And then he smiles with all his teeth despite the fact that his soulmate has avoided him since the semester began and David’s heart sinks. Matteo says, “I knew it was you.”

Matteo tries to kiss him.

David pushes him away.

David leaves.

* * *

If knowing is a burden, not knowing is a bullet. Matteo’s been shot three times.

First bang is when his mother stops getting out of bed. His father yells at her for it and when David overhears it on the phone, he presses mute and continues the conversation in the hallway outside the apartment.

Second is David leaving the first time. But that’s a flesh wound because he can wait for him. There is something about David that feels like a memory that escapes him and comes back in time. Something about David feels both fleeting and solid, like the sun or the moon. Every time Matteo has said goodbye to David, he has said hello to him the day after.

And then he texts David _happy birthday_.

And then he wakes up with with a tattoo.

And then the bullet ricochets and hits him in the heart, hits him like a ton of bricks, hits him like a car (an unfortunate case of irony, though he’ll never know it).

David leaves him alone in a smelly bathroom at school and Matteo cries for ten minutes before he goes to the dirty sink and tries to wash the ink off his arm.

* * *

David rushes out the bathroom with his head down and his eyes closed. He runs into the wall. Something pinches his arm.

Laura is there, and she is younger and happier and not mad at him. She says, “You’re it.” David grabs her and squeezes her close.


	5. five am

"I have these dreams," David says. "Like, I'll bounce from Laura's 'you're it' to your 'it's you' like I'm a ping pong ball. And then I wind up flying off court and waking up." Matteo blinks at him. David goes, "You're mad."

Matteo asks, "Have you told me this story before?" David's heart stops.

"Not explicitly. Why? Do you remember it?" Matteo shakes his head. David says, "Oh."

Matteo says, in a very even voice, "I think you should leave, actually."

In an alternate universe, this would be the beginning of a fight that never ends and that echoes through the cosmos. David would protest and Matteo would yell, and the sudden volume shift would rock and hurt David to his core. So David would yell equally hurtful things back, awful things like "you sound like your father" or evil things like "you sound like your mother."

This David is not that David.

This David feels his chest tighten, but he stands.

This David says, "Okay." As he walks to the door, he sees a rainbow flag and a crucifix on the same wall, and he's reminded of a memory he's unsure if he made up or not. He turns back to Matteo and asks, "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

Immediately: "I don't like hearing this anymore." Matteo says, "You know about Jonas and Hanna and my family." Matteo's nose scrunches up. David looks away. "And you hurt me. Is that all this is? You hurting me and going back because, what, I didn't love you the right way? That's bullshit."

"And I wasn't obsessed with you," Matteo snaps. He's blushing. "That wasn't me."

David says, "I'm sorry. I told you I was sorry."

"You can't apologize before you even tell me what you did wrong." He's so frustrated he think he might cry. And the whole time, David sits there with a calm face, with barely any emotion, like he's speaking about the weather. Matteo says, "I hooked up with Jonas."

David's eyes widen. Matteo thinks, _Finally._

David's like, "You what?"

"This time, I broke up Hanna and Jonas and we were drinking and I kissed him." He just wants to hurt David a little. He just wants to prove he knows something about himself that David doesn't. He says, "Fuck you, I don't love you. Get out of my room."

"Matteo—"

"I said piss off!" Matteo cannot remember himself ever yelling like this. David can. Matteo can see it in his eyes that he can. He says, more to himself than to David, "This is bullshit. Soulmates are bullshit." Matteo says, "Souls aren't real."

And the other stuff was understandable, really, but for some reason that pisses David off. How could that even possibly be true after all he's seen and all they've done and all that's happened?

David asks, "Then how can souls be matched then?" Matteo is too angry to form a coherent rebuttal. Something about his thoughts seem cloudy and bite at the inside of his skull like static.

"I don't know!" Matteo grumbles. "How do people get concussions and then wake up knowing foreign languages? Sometimes shit just happens for no reason."

"So you believe in God but you don't believe in soulmates?"

Matteo says, darkly, "Don't make fun of me."

"I'm not.

"Sure you aren't." Matteo glares. "Maybe I just don't like you. Maybe I don't want someone to love me just because they think they should. Maybe I want someone to choose me."

David does the opposite of leaving. He strides closer to Matteo's bed and away from any door.

"I choose you," he says, and he seems confused because he thought it was obvious. David looks at Matteo and sees all of him, all he ever was, and will ever be. "I choose you every time. I rewound _years_ and chose you. And when I stopped, I chose you then, too. And ever since then, I wake up every day and choose to love you." David says, "I understand you're angry. I lied to you. A lot. Maybe. If all that was real." He continues, "But whether you believe in souls or not or God or Allah or whatever, I love you."

Matteo takes several large, deep breaths.

David says, "I'll leave." Matteo keeps going. In, out. In, out. Catching his breath. He's just run an emotional marathon. He's just felt something he thought he was rid of. David's almost gone.

Matteo's like, "And another thing." David stops and turns around and Matteo realizes there is no other thing. This is done. It can be done if he lets it be.

Matteo says, "Come here," because he can't get out of bed.

David comes here.

Matteo kisses him.

Matteo pulls away. "Did you feel anything?"

David exhales, "No."

He does it again. "Do you feel anything?"

David lies, "No."

And again and again until he's pulling David down by his hair then his neck then his hoodie. They're kissing and kissing and Matteo can't tell if he wants this or if he only  wants to want this. But David is so whole and warm above him and Matteo knows if he tugged him down further—all the way down until he was on top of him—they'd fit like puzzle pieces.

 _So maybe it is real_ , Matteo thinks, and it makes his stomach sink.

David says, while kissing, "Maybe we shouldn't be kissing."

Marteo kisses his bottom lip and says, "Shut." He kisses his top lip and says, "Up."

"I meant," David says, pulling away. "Because you're sick."

"They said I couldn't play video games. They didn't say anything about kissing."

"It was probably implied." David forcefully removes Matteo's hands. "Do you still want me to leave?"

Matteo nods his head but says, "No."

David smiles. "What am I supposed to do with that?"

Matteo huffs. "When you figure out, come back here and tell me." David nods. David stands. "What was try number 3 like?" If this is an invitation to stay, David accepts it worriedly.

"Our first fight. You were upset so I left." Matteo rolls his eyes. "Repetitive. I know."

"You make me sound like a naggy housewife," Matteo groans. "Go on. Out with it then." David moves to Matteo's desk on the opposite side of the room. No touching.

"I'll tell it from over here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> your comments really mean a lot to me! they make me laugh and cry and just thank you guys so much for responding because it helps a lot whew


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